MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to include the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (the DPR and the LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions into Russia’s Southern Military District, according to the document published on Monday.

"To establish the following military-administrative division: the Southern Military District within the administrative borders of the Republic of Adygea, the Republic of Dagestan, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Republic of Ingushetia, the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, the Republic of Kalmykia, the Karachay-Circassia Republic, the Republic of Crimea, the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania, the Chechen Republic, the Krasnodar and Stavropol Regions, the Astrakhan, Volgograd, Zaporozhye, Rostov and Kherson Regions and the city of Sevastopol," the decree says.

In February 2023, the Russian Defense Ministry uploaded an updated map of the Military Districts on its website showing that Russia’s newly integrated regions were now within the area of responsibility of the Southern Military District.